Tag Archives: swim

It’s interesting I’m writing this post. After spending years of my life swimming, I gave it up five years ago. I didn’t look back and haven’t been in the pool much since. But due to injury, here I am in the pool.

I don’t hate swimming, and I also don’t have a bitter relationship with it. The fact of the matter is, I enjoy other activities more. As a child, teenager and college student, I spent so much time swimming competitively that I’m still burnt out. Now that I’m unable to do certain activities, such as running, I got back into pool. After swimming for a few weeks, I remembered swimming does have it’s benefits.

I also joined my neighborhood swim club so I can meet my neighbors, swim outside and get some relaxing reading as well as trashy TV but enough about me.

Why should runners get in the pool?

Less pressure on your joints

You can still get a workout in without putting stress and pressure on your joints and bones.

Less tan lines

Running outside means tan lines from compression socks, sports bras, shorts, and shoes. When you swim outside, you only have bathing suit tan lines. It’s perfect! You workout and get to remove any unwanted tanlines. Despite not running much this summer, I’m still working on my compression sleeve tan line. PSA: Always wear sunscreen when outside.

Swimming in the Summer is Refreshing

Finishing a run can often be a hot, soggy mess. You can swim laps in an outdoor pool when it’s 100 degrees and feel great. You can also swim at any time of the day without worrying about overheating. The only thing you have to worry about with swimming is the occasional thunderstorm.

Strength Work

Swimming gets some (not all) of the benefits of strength work without lifting weights. When you are swimming back and forth using the water as resistance, you build upper body strength. I had much more upper body muscle when I collegiately swam as well.

Like anything else, swimming isn’t for everyone. You could experiment in the pool and realize you love it or you could experiment and realize you hate it. At the end of the day, it’s about finding something you enjoy doing.

Like this:

Last week’s workouts were interesting. I’m beginning to enjoy working out again, which I guess is good. After running was taken from me, I am just happy to do other workouts again. Some injuries I have wanted nothing more than to be lazy, while others I’ve wanted to work through. This injury has been a respectable combination of both. I haven’t done anything to make my foot worse, but I haven’t felt the need to cross train as hard as possible either.

Since this is a running blog, I’ll start there because I ran one mile yesterday. Plus, they say to start with the bad news and follow up with good news?

I was allowed to run one mile yesterday and honestly it didn’t feel great. I don’t know if I’m completely healed despite taking five weeks off from running and being minor. I’m not sure if it’s soft tissue damage or still bone, but luckily I have a doctors appointment tomorrow, and we will discuss more. I didn’t feel injured, but something did feel off.

Workouts:

Monday:

Swimming (2000 meters)+15 minutes core

Tuesday:

Swimming (2500 meters)

Wednesday:

Swimming (3000 meters)+15 minutes core

Thursday:

Swimming (2000 meters)+ 45 minutes spin

Friday:

Rest

Saturday:

Spin 1 hour

Sunday:

1-mile run and Swimming 2000 meters

Swimming Workouts:

I typically swim sets of 1000s. I find it manageable to count up to 1000. I take a break and then continue. I don’t have a rhyme or reason of why I swim 2000 or 3000; I just swim until I feel satisfied. As someone who used to race the 1000 in college, it’s a new experience just swimming 1000s. I can’t say swimming countless laps is thrilling, but I swam for so long it doesn’t bother me.

I don’t love swimming, but it is nice to do something. I don’t forsee myself spending a lot of time in the pool once I’m injury free. I’ll probably do some spinning classes because I enjoy doing those more than the process of getting into the pool.

Core Workouts:

I mentioned earlier, but I like doing the Nike Training Club App. There are plenty of exercises for every single part you want to target. Workouts vary from 7 minutes to an hour.

Thoughts:

I’m disappointed that my run didn’t feel great. I can’t help but wonder if it’s soft tissue and I’m paranoid, but I would rather be safe than sorry. I’ll see what my doctor says tomorrow and go from there. For the meantime, I’ll continue what I’m doing because that doesn’t irritate my foot.

Note from Hollie: I cannot believe there is less then a month to go until the Lake Effect Half Marathon. This story is from someone who I know personally and it has touched me so much. The first time I read this post I cried. Thank you for sharing friend. If you would like to submit your story please don’t hesitate to email me, I am looking for about 10 more. Please don’t hesitate to donate to my fundraising campaign. My goal today is to reach 1600 dollars (about 140 until that point). It means a lot to me when you do, or if you share the page with someone else. Sharing a story, my fundraising page, or raising awareness are all so helpful. Thank you everyone for your support. I know I have two various campaigns going on right now but this is by far the most important to me. I have enjoyed how many people have donated, shared and how many lives this series of posts is touching. I cannot believe how big it is becoming!

—————

Submitted by anonymous

I had body image issues for as long as I can remember. For example, when I was in gymnastics: I was probably 6 or 7 the day I moved up from a white belt (belts symbolized your level) to a red belt and I remember being self-conscious when the lady was measuring out the elastic band to put around my waist. I was so upset, secretly, that my new red belt was bigger than my white belt. In my family food and weight has always been a weird topic. My parents would openly make rude remarks in front of us about fat people, or use them as an example of what we would look like if we didn’t eat healthy. My mom only wanted us to be healthy but it came across in a very negative way to me as a child and being fat seemed like the most shameful thing I could do. I started sneaking into my parents’ bathroom to weigh myself by the time I was 10.

My eating disorder began gradually in 8th grade and the summer before my freshman year of high school. I was a competitive swimmer and ever since I began, I had a lot of pressure on me to “reach my potential” and eventually get college scholarships. I felt so much pressure and stress to perform the way I was expected to, especially once I started swimming for the high school team and was the one expected to win all my races and save all the relays. Somehow, in my head I based my worth off my weight and became obsessed with getting thinner, convincing myself that I’d be faster. By that fall of my freshman year I was only eating an apple or a clif bar most days – while swimming 2 practices a day, a cross training/running PE class, and excessive exercise on my own when I got home at night. My weight never dropped low enough to be concerning and I hid my eating habits very well. Even when I was completely fatigued and exhausted, I always managed to push myself enough to scrape by – although I got frequent lectures about how I wasn’t swimming fast enough or training right. A lot of times I hid my physical exhaustion in my let’s-make-coach-mad antics. I was a troublemaker in the pool. Despite my issues and terrible self-esteem, I wasn’t miserable. In fact I had a false sense of pride – I was still the fastest swimmer and a straight-A student and I didn’t even need food to do it! But I still hated how “fat” I was and would constantly beat myself up over everything I did.

I couldn’t keep up this starvation act for long. In the springtime of my freshman year after passing out in the shower one morning, I was scared enough to eat a bit more. This turned into binging about once a week. But I started to gain weight. I had always sworn to myself that I would NEVER stoop low enough to vomit, but it was inevitable.

The first time I tried to make myself throw up was after I had pasta for dinner one night during a rare family dinner. I tried but had no luck. But once I had broken down that mental barrier, there was no stopping me and within a few weeks I was able to make myself throw up easily. By summertime I had full-blown bulimia. There were some days I’d eat and throw up 6 times in a row before heading to a workout. My sophomore year and the following summer were like this, still with periods where I’d just restrict my food to nothing. This all wreaked havoc on my swim practices and my times got slower, after that summer, not faster.

Junior year, I went back to being homeschooled. This meant I had tons of time and tons of food. Disaster. After morning practice I’d come home and eat and throw up. Sometimes once would be enough; sometimes it would happen over and over again. I kept gaining weight, which didn’t go unnoticed – especially when you’re a competitive swimmer. The missing food didn’t go unnoticed either. Eventually at some point my mother sent me to a nutritionist at the gym. I decided to come clean about my eating habits. I can’t remember exactly why – I was by no means willing to stop at that point. But long story short, eventually I got set up with a nutritionist and therapist in the closest city. That was one of the worst seasons of my life. My mom and I fought so much over this issue. I was going to appointments, but I didn’t like them at all. In the end the therapist basically told me to stop coming because we were just wasting money and time. I was having nothing to do with it (and no way I was able to follow a meal plan). The traditional eating disorder recovery approach was NOT going to work with me. (granted, I didn’t truly give it an honest effort. But at 15 or 16 this was my impression.)

Things got worse and at one point in which I realized I needed to stop hating myself and stop hurting myself. I realized I could never be the person I wanted to be if bulimia defined my life. The real kick in the butt came one night though. It was late at night and I started having chest pains, feeling faint, shaking uncontrollably, and was beginning to black out. I was desperate enough that I tried to get up and go downstairs to find my mom, but I couldn’t even walk down the hall. I was terrified. I may have hated myself, but deep down I cared enough about myself that this was not okay! Ruining my health and living my life in a self-obsessed bubble was NOT going to get me anywhere worth going. I decided to “fake it till I make it.” I basically pretended to be a confident person who loved herself and her body. Whenever I wanted to mentally beat myself up I would just stop and not let it happen. Slowly but surely without even realizing it my pretending turned into reality.

The food side of things was a bit harder, seeing as that was more like a physical addiction to me. Even when I stopped feeling super guilty every time I ate, my body had a hard time keeping down and digesting food. So then I would just NOT eat, but the deprivation would trigger such an intense desire for food that I would end up binging. Sometimes I purged, sometimes I didn’t. I sure didn’t like gaining weight from that though. I found a book that really resonated with me – it’s called Brain Over Binge and like me, the author didn’t find traditional therapy to be very effective. Instead, she looked at her bulimia from a physical standpoint where FOOD actually IS the issue (binging becomes an addiction). I was so glad to have read this book. Gradually, my situation with food got better. I was over feeling guilty, so I just needed time for my body to get used to being fed consistently.

It’s not as if I’ve never worried about my weight or had poor body image since then, but it in no way shape or form dominates my thoughts anymore. I became more focused on what my body can DO versus what it looks like. I’m more proud of my athletic accomplishments than I ever will be about any weight loss. And I love my body enough to treat it well and want to feed it with appropriate nutrition to support my activities. I was very into crossfit and bootcamp classes late in high school and I started to appreciate my abilities rather than my looks.

I no longer swim. I started to swim in my freshman year of college, but I found myself mentally reverting back to old habits and thought processes. My eating disorder past is just too entwined with swimming. Now I’m in love with a new sport – rugby! If there’s any sport that is completely discourages eating disorders and thinness, rugby is it. I am incredibly lucky to be at a point where an eating disorder no longer dictates my life and I can focus on my friends and family, school, and rugby. My relationship with my mom was once extremely rocky and fragile, but now we’re very close and don’t fight anymore. We never talk about my eating disorder though. I hope that everyone struggling with an eating disorder can find their own path to recovery. Thanks Hollie for everything you’re doing!

Share this:

Like this:

I always enjoy learning more about bloggers whether it’s their personal life, a random story or question and answer post. Though to be honest I still could care less what your favorite color is…I will probably forget two seconds after commenting.

Though the mention of swimming on this blog seems like a life time ago, there was a time where I swam and didn’t run (anything before August 2010). My old lolz swimming identity was lolzthatswim…ever wonder why my email is lolzthatswim? I never changed it to fueledbylolz (at) gmail…I feel there has got to be a pretty streamline (ha) way to do this…I just don’t know how and haven’t looked into). Just over two years ago, I quit competitive swimming forever and made one of the best decisions at the time for me.

I swam throughout high school and I swam 3 years of college. I logged lots of swimming miles…from point A right back to point A…in a circle for hours and hours. I believe my most famous quote from swim team was (after being asked why do you like swimming the 1000)

“Because I like to start at point A go into cardiac arrest and come back to point A 20 times.”

Lately I have been thinking a lot about my past life. I often get the question if I regret not running in high school or early college (instead of swimming). The answer is always no. I wouldn’t trade those swimming moments for the world. I met some of my best friends swimming in high school as well as college. Women I might have met otherwise but our friendships grew strong and blossomed throughout those terrible swim practices. (I’m looking at you 10X400 IMS…or you 5X1000 timed off the blocks)…so no I don’t regret not running earlier.

If we live our lives in the past and wonder what could have been, we cannot move on in the future. I don’t regret not running in high school or early college because I don’t think I would be enjoying it as much now if I did. If I ran and was pressured into speed workouts during college I think it would have not allowed me to develop the passion for running I have now. I would have burnt out. I know I would be exercising now but I don’t think I would consider myself a serious runner.

I think for me personally it took a lot of time to realize how much I truly enjoyed running. Coming from someone who absolutely hated running in the past and nearly failed the mile several times in both middle and high school (shout out to my gym teachers who screamed at me to pass) I could not fathom that in the future I would be writing a blog about how much I enjoy running.

Who knows, in five years I might enjoy cycling. I don’t like to live in the past whether it’s my run life, personal life or overall life. I think we have to move upward and onward. I loved swimming and will never regret those times or friends I made but my time with that has long passed. Perhaps one day I’ll get back into the pool and love it…or perhaps I never will. Only time will tell.

Like this:

The moment I got into the NYCM my life became pure chaos. About a week after signing up for the marathon I decided I would work for the summer in VA then move to Texas with Tim in the fall. He was graduating around that time and it made sense it would be a good time frame. When I made that decision in May I thought I would have the summer to train for the marathon and keep that training in the fall while living down in Texas. Since moving down here only two weeks ago, life has thrown me a lot of curve balls.

Somewhere in college I lost the ability to be flexible. I think it was the day I signed up for the cross country team while already being on our collegiate swim team. (Looking back I think why was this a good idea?) Between college work, classes, running and swimming I needed to be in a routine to get everything done in the day. I knew what I needed to do and when . I also knew I needed to have life planned out a few days prior to accomplish these tasks. That worked out well for me throughout school and I was able to thrive in everything I set out to do. It worked out well solely because I had no one elses schedule to work around. It was just me. After making a lot of life decisions senior year I stayed pretty routine to finish my new major on time while still running. Even on days that I didn’t have class until noon I liked to wake up around 7 and do homework in the morning.

When I got a job in Oswego I kept a planned routine. I essentially had been living by myself and on my own schedule for three years and just needed to worry about myself. Now living with Tim I’ve already learned very quickly you can’t plan or make plans based upon yourself and you have to be flexible.

For instance Tim doesn’t always get done with work until around 6, 7 or even 8. He also doesn’t know when he will get done and can’t text and say I’ll be done at such and such time. So I have to be flexible of when I’m eating or making dinner. Maybe he will show up at 5…maybe 8. Both have happened on numerous occasions.

We also thought we would be moving again at the earliest in January. That isn’t in the cards for us and we will have to be in New Jersey by early November. That is only a month and a half away. I just unpacked and moved to Texas and now I have to repack and move to New Jersey. There was little or no warning and he just came home and said “hey check this out”. Oh these are our move dates.

Incase you forgot I’m also running the New York City Marathon the first weekend in November. So I have that bit of stress to go along with moving and training. Moving, training, looking for a job was not all part of my plan and routine when graduating college but it’s what happened.

So over the course of the week I learned that I will have to move again BEFORE the marathon on November 3rd. I have to repack everything and due to some training Tim is doing be in New Jersey before he gets there. We were not expecting this at all. Would I have moved to Texas if this was the case? I don’t know but no sense in playing the what if game. I don’t regret it. I am enjoying my refound spontaneous and flexible attitude.

Being flexible is something I have come to embrace again in the last few weeks. I thought I could live my life on a set routine but moving down here has taught me that is not the case at all. I am glad to have found a spontaneous happy medium. I don’t fear the future like I once did I am embracing it. Things will happen when they happen. I will find a job when I move to NJ and worrying about it now isn’t going to do me any good. As much as I would love to preach this to others I know it is something they must find on their own, just as I did.